I first heard speak of the importance of The Constructed Landscape: concrete to his designs in the late 1970s. As the student charged with organizing lectures at my architecture school in Arthur Erickson’s Concrete , a first talk there by Canada’s most prominent modern was my top priority. I called his office, but Erickson’s personal secretary informed me he no longer gave lectures to universities, only to “bankers and chambers of commerce.” I persisted, and arranged to have the - based designer speak to a luncheon gathering of downtown businessmen.

One of Erickson’s phrases in his talk that day cycled around my student brain long after he got on the airplane back to Vancouver, and the Calgary businessmen got back to pumping oil. While I did not recognize it as being so at the time, he voiced a widely-quoted shibboleth as an aside: “Concrete is the marble of the 20th century.” The use of concrete Trevor Boddy validated through comparison with a now-expensive traditional material? The reference seemed archaic to me, in part because my architectural history studies had just taught me that the ancient shores of the Mediterranean were the last home to marble used as both structure and finish for public buildings. Or was Erickson inferring something more complex with this, as in late Roman and post-Renaissance uses of marble—a veneer finish, while bricks or cheaper stones did the structural work behind, a composite in the same way steel reinforcing rods make large span and thin shell concrete structures possible?

Arthur Erickson’s concrete buildings demonstrate both of these tendencies—an extension of building logic of the material itself, and a classicizing sensibility, especially in their spatial logic and recurring use of the trabeated frame. Erickson had extensive exposure to the buildings of the Mediterranean, extending his modest post-graduate travelling scholarship from McGill University into nearly two years of looking and sketching there, starting with Egypt and the Levantine, then returning through Turkey, Greece and Italy. Evergreen Building Conservation Plan, Vancouver 2006. Teaching at Oregon then the University of , of these rough-textured concrete frames gradually diminishing the first decade of Arthur Erickson’s architectural practice was by a half meter as they rise from grade to penthouse, the glass almost entirely post-and-beam houses made out of ever-cheap line held constant. Of course, there is less need for structure and always-plentiful BC fir and cedar, beginning with a as the building gets higher, but any rational engineer would modest 1953 studio-house for painter Thomas Gordon Smith. have repeated the same detailing and depth of frame all the A second studio-house for Smith a decade later is one of the way up, an approximation that would of course saved on definitive works of Pacific Northwest modernism, the rhetoric customized design and formwork costs. But the intentions of of large timber post-and-beam extended heroically. this construction detail are entirely architectural, and the result is a lightness of form and presence of a tower with so vast a About the same time, Erickson and then-partner Geoff cubage of cast concrete. Massey won the architectural competition for , an all-new institution on a mountaintop bench in a A large concrete office block with a comparable quality of Vancouver suburb. Concrete was the material of choice for heaviness made light is Clorindo Testa’s Lloyd’s Bank the series of academic pavilions and site-works there, but each building in Buenos Aires. Neither Testa nor Erickson are building was achieved by other architectural firms in Brutalists in the British mode of, say, Denys Lasdun. While association with Erickson-Massey, for the usual political all three clearly share an admiration for the late reasons of spreading the bounty of commissions around, and works Le Corbusier—and Testa worked briefly at the rue de because their young firm had never done a public building in Sevres—Erickson’s classicizing impulses drew him away from concrete, or a public building of any kind, for that matter. heavily textured concrete treatments in subsequent works.The Oversight of a dozen large structures using a wide variety of egg crate elevation of MacMillan-Bloedel are not, as some concrete finishes and structures was Erickson’s best possible have suggested, a mere multiplication of the monk’s cell post-graduate course of study in the use of the material, and elevations of La Tourette. he demonstrated a remarkable maturity when his own practice shifted almost entirely to the use of concrete. Allusions to vernacular traditions embedded subtly in concrete frames are central to Arthur Erickson’s masterpiece, While there was an association of record with another the 1976 Museum of Anthropology at the University of British architectural firm for it, too, Erickson’s concrete innovations Columbia. The institution houses one of the world’s most im- are first declared in one of the most remarkable concrete portant collections of Pacific Northwest native art, and office towers built anywhere during the 1970s—the MacMillan- Erickson cued off the monumental hewed cedar dwellings of Bloedel Tower on Georgia Street, in downtown Vancouver. British Columbia’s Haida and Kwakiutl indigenous peoples. Dominated by an extraordinarily deep egg-crate frame, this is This is particularly evident in the concrete frame of the great a slab tower in two slightly displaced wings, the elevator core at hall there, sized to accommodate even the largest of conserved centre. Vancouver is in the same seismic zone as San totem poles oriented to face the ocean, as was their traditional Francisco or , but the structural overkill of this siting. Because of the constant availability of large dimension massive frame has more to do with classical memory than timber from the surrounding temperate rain forests, native earthquake resistance. The frame of MacMillan-Bloedel’s peoples in this region used wood extravagantly, often floor-to-floor egg-crates are trabeated—horizontals flush with extending beams far past columns, or setting up large ceremo- verticals. The classical sensibility of this squaring-off of the nial portals and carved entrances. frame is amplified in Erickson’s use of entasis, with the depth Erickson’s UBC Museum of Anthropology great hall uses a amongst the first of the truly global architectural practices. series of portal frames in cast concrete, each larger than the last stepping up to a structural glass wall looking out to sea. The informing idea of the Simon Fraser University The extravagant extension of the inverted U-shaped beams design—that of a huge concrete building that aspires to the past the column line is, of course, more rhetorical than scale and conditions of landscape itself—re-asserts itself in structural, an allusion to similar details in the aboriginal another landmark Erickson design of the 1970s. The Meso- house-fronts much more than mere exploitation of a American ceremonial city of Monte Alban, near Oaxaca, structurally ‘free’ cantilever. The architectural effect of these Mexico, had served as Erickson’s historical precedent for an cast-in-place concrete frames, however, may read better as axial university on a mountaintop. For his second academic propylaea than communal Haida dwelling. The past few years campus commission at the University of , a 3 km- have also seen a revealing debate about the cleaning of the long early 20th century timber railway trestle across a wide somewhat stained exterior surfaces of the great hall portals. river valley served as point of departure for an entire university Some would wish these brought back to the gleaming original conceived as monolithic mega-structure. From student condition of fresh-poured concrete. For some of us, including residences through labs to classrooms and faculty offices, all the architect, the stain patterns and mild moss growth there university functions were combined in this single bridge- are a welcome patina of age, the re-assertion of the power of building. Early schemes extended the Brutalist detailing and nature and the logic of the site on even so bold an act of heavy concrete frame of McMillan Bloedel, but with the con- architectural imagination. crete surfaces flattened and smoothed out, in part because Erickson came to understand the much brighter and harsher A similar argument could be made about Erickson’s light, which renders even fine textures and reveals continuing interest in Asian architecture. Erickson saw crisply, amplifying their architectural effects, meaning there wartime service with British Intelligence in India, spent a year was no need for the textured concrete heroics of the British after the war in Southeast Asia, and made some career-shaping Columbia projects. visits to Japan in the early 1960’s. The architect suggests the Torii Gates and the extensive throw of temple eaves he saw Arthur Erickson’s notions of building-as-landscape are then were influential to his design thinking for the museum condensed in a second, equally remarkable downtown and the other projects which followed. While the building Vancouver building, one which both resonates with the was constructed with glulam beams and mirrored glass, MacMillan-Bloedel tower, but shows a tempering Erickson’s Canadian Pavilion at EXPO 70 in was influence from the architecture-as-landscape thesis he awarded the top pavilion prize and widely admired by fellow developed during the fifteen years after Simon Fraser architects—Tadao Ando told Erickson and I that this building University, but applied here for the first time for a densely- was a key influence on his new architectural practice in that developed urban core situation. Vancouver lawyer John city. Since the UBC Museum of Anthropology has a Laxton assembled a site on the Stanley Park side of downtown collection that includes all key world cultures, this balance of Vancouver very near Coal Harbour, and asked Erickson to European with Asian with Native North American allusions is develop a scheme that would be adaptable to either office or apt, its architectural delineation clean, its definition of spaces— residential uses. The lawyer’s own firm would be both enclosed and implied—very powerful. With architectural accommodated, but it was unclear whether the long-term successes in North America, Europe, the Middle East and market at this view location would be for professional offices Asia all underway before 1980, Arthur Erickson’s was or urban apartments. Macmillan Bloedel Office Tower 1969, Cast concrete framed ‘double’ towers. Museum of Anthropology, UBC 1976, Housing the NW First Nation material collection. For what came to be known as the Evergreen Building, Omicron Engineering in Vancouver. Leyland’s plan sets a Erickson accordingly developed a literally two-sided new standard for the conservation of a Modern concrete approach. For the elevation along Pender—a key downtown building in Canada, with thorough documentation of the commercial street—Erickson crafted a fairly conventional issues, and a carefully-considered conservation strategy. cast-in-place mid-rise concrete office tower. On the harbour Because of the complexity of the surfaces and slight variations sides, something remarkably different is devised by the in construction, Leyland’s team built a three-dimensional architect, with the full plastic potential of concrete exploited by digital model of all building components, an initially hiving off the elevation as a stepped series of faceted trays, time-consumptive investment that has paid off at all other each potential housing unit have a sea-view deck. The stages of work. A precise survey and a reliable three building is thus something of an icon of Vancouver itself, with dimensional visuals (sections and plans could be digitally cut hard office building elevations on the city side, but a softer, atany place and scale) proved hugely helpful in both more organic treatment on the elevations facing park, harbour understanding the many conservation issues before the and mountains, an encapsulation of the city’s unique Evergreen, and in planning their remediation. combination of high density housing with close-in near-wilderness. Propositions to enclose with glass or entirely re-surface outside walls of the decks were rejected, in part because they The building was dubbed “Evergreen” by architect and owner are much beloved by present and future tenants, a unique because the decks are all ringed by continuous planters. In feature in a city which tends to nominal apartment balconies Vancouver’s wet climate, these are filled to the brim with ivy, too small for active use. Nearly all planters are being re-lined, which drapes over the side, sometimes all but obscuring the and many deck surfaces replaced as conservation works are concrete structures themselves. A cascade of greenery carried out (conservation is still ongoing as this is written in fall amplifying the plan logic of the harbourside decks, this is one of 2007.) Patches, splices and parging are proving sufficient to building where the 1970s fashion for drawing lush greenery deal with cracks or missing concrete sections, and to date exploding from every horizontal surface—in Wrightian there has been no need to replace large sections. The fashion—is actually duplicated in reality. building is being continuously occupied as conservation works are conducted, and updated mechanical services have been Issues tied to the decks are crucial to the current conservation introduced. The conservation is also a welcome chance to plan now being implemented for the Evergreen Building. As undo an unfortunate 1980s lobby renewal, bringing back the is often the case, imperfect seals on the planters has allowed spatial clarity of Erickson’s original design. water to accumulate on the insides of the concrete deck structures, both vertical and horizontal surfaces. For portions Just as impressive as the technical strategies of conservation exposed to the weather on both sides, water accumulation for the Evergreen Building is the public activism and combined with Vancouver’s occasional but destructive imaginative heritage planning that saved the building from freeze-thaw cycles have led to spaling of the concrete, exposing demolition. A public campaign was led by Vancouver the rebar (most evident at the deck floor level), and thus Heritage Commission member and Erickson Conservancy enabling further moisture migration. founder Cheryl Cooper when demolition was repeatedly threatened, this 11 storey building having a substantially lower Conservation architect Marcus Leyland prepared the density than permitted by contemporary downtown Evergreen Building’s conservation plan while working for Vancouver planning regulations. On another front, architect

The Waterfall Building 2002. Flexible live-or-work units around a court based on Corbusian cross-section. David Thom of the firm I.B.I. used legal maneuvers tied to others. While the Evergreen Building has been preferred, the the unbreakable long-term lease his firm had signed for Graham House a key 1963 design was recently lost. It will be premises in the Evergreen Building to play for time, until a a bitter irony indeed if more works by this architect engaged ground-breaking heritage planning proposition for its with landscape are not maintined as part of Vancouver’s conservation had solidified. architectural landscape.

The heritage planning agreement that saved the Evergreen Building is unique to Canada. Vancouver uses transfer of development rights as a conservation mechanism in the downtown core only. The Evergreen’s owner was allowed to transfer one of the largest total of such rights to another site, where new construction will be higher and denser than permitted by prior land use controls. Just as important, the planning approvals agreement required the owner to do the survey of building conditions and prepare a conservation plan to the highest of contemporary standards, then implement it. The Evergreen Building is now permanently preserved by means of legal agreements obliging subsequent owners to conserve the building as-is, in perpetuity (it is important to note that Canada and British Columbia have the weakest heritage legislation in the OECD, with designations—the American “landmarking” or British “listing”—usually being owner-selected and reversible.) The now-protected building has since been sold to a large pension fund, assuring its permanent place as a marker of Erickson’s approach to architecture-as-landscape.

Arthur Erickson’s architectural interests in concrete tend neither to the voluptuous plasticity of Niemeyer and the Brazilians, nor the heavy textures and self-importance of Lasdun and the British Brutalists. Uniquely Canadian is his ongoing design engagement with concrete buildings that take on the character and tectonics of landscape itself—large buildings for a new and large nation that serve as both figure and ground. Erickson’s innovations have done much to inspire similar notions in later generations of Canadian architects, notably fellow Vancouverites John and Patricia Patkau, but also designers as diverse as , Shim and Sutcliffe, Pierre Thibault, and , Low Courts gardens and offices 1983